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Sally Murphy, Australian author

Poetry Friday: What a Wonderful World

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It’s Poetry Friday and I want to share a beautiful video and my poetic response to it, as a kind of poetry prompt.

Here’s the video, featuring David Attenborough AND awesome images AND one of my favourite songs:

As an aside, this clip was shown at the CBCA Conference in Sydney as a means of demonstrating what nonfiction books are up against – a point which I thought was a good one, but given that it straightway made me a) want to write and b) find out more about some of the things I saw, I think a good audio-visual resource is a way into books and writing.

Anyway, while it was playing I knew I wanted to respond, but I also knew that I wanted to listen to the rest of the very interesting panel discussion. So I quickly scribbled the words What A Wonderful World on my notebook. Then I looked at what I’d done – I’d written one word per line down the page. Was this the start of a poem?

Some time later (and after the session was over) this is what I came up with:

What trees! What flowers!

A mountain, a sea

Wonderful whales, wonderful wilds

World upon world upon world.

 (Poem copyright S. Murphy 2016)

Short but sweet, but it led me to wonder if this was something I could do with other song titles, especially ones which have been set to video footage.

So here’s a prompt for you.

Either watch the above video, and then write the words What A Wonderful World down your page – and see where it takes you (it’s like an acrostic but with a word rather than a single letter beginning each ling). OR find a song that you like, take its title and do the same. I’d love to see what you come up with!

Have a great week. The Poetry Friday roundup  is at The Drift Record.

Comments

  1. I love everything about this post, Sally! The video is amazing, and your idea to use the song title as a poetry starter is so inspiring! I’m looking forward to sharing this with students next week and seeing what they’ll come up with. Thanks so much for sharing!

  2. Sally, this activity is a wonderful writing activity to show the teachers I work with. Thanks, Sally.

    What sparks my curiosity-
    A springtime of wonders
    Wonderful to behold in a
    World of blossoms.

  3. I’m at the car place waiting on repairs, and my mini iPad is not in the mood to open that link! But let me try the challenge.

    I’m still thinking about Julie’s BOOKS AROUND THE TABLE post today:

    What kind of mountain,
    a tower of hard-stacked ground,
    wonderful in its terror, explodes the
    world around it
    in the space of heartbeats?

    Thanks for the prompt, and for sharing your poem. Love your last line!

  4. Thanks for sharing the beautiful video, Sally. It’s so nice to focus on positive things when there are so many troubling things plaguing our planet. Also like your idea of using the words of song titles as a prompt for poems. 🙂

  5. Sally, I love this post, and my juices are flowing. Here are two:

    What more can I/
    add that could be as/
    wonderful as watching nature rage and bloom all over the/
    world? I can be me, you can be you, and we can be true.

    Bridges, covered and cross,
    over hot springs, mudflats, emerging nymphs and
    troubled times, washing
    waters carry, carve and create anew.

    What a delicious pleasure, Sally. And now I’m late!!

  6. I loved the video so much I watched it twice, Sally, & love your poem, then the prompt idea. It’s always fun to see what our minds are up to!

    What pleasure to see
    A world poetically
    Wonderful sounds
    World magic surrounds

    I’ll keep your idea, Sally! Thank you!

  7. Okay, I’m going to give this a try. Here goes:

    Let’s do something crazy, kiddo. Like what? Like arf and howl,
    call to the shy moon like so: Ooo-oww-oh-ooo, let’s take
    the letter i and turn it into we, let’s whee around, let’s make
    whole what’s barely a slice, let’s tickle everything in sight, let’s make a
    thing like a moo sound like meow now, let’s bebop and strip naked,
    off go the clothes, let’s go nutty, let’s go cashews, whatdoyousay, kid?

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